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not good... not good at all...
From:
JessieJess
Date posted:
5/16/2008
Years at this apartment:
2007
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2008
2 responses
When I first moved into this complex 8 months ago, I was really excited. The office staff seemed nice and the appartment was huge. I moved in the beginning of october so the weather was pretty much perfect and I had no need to run my heater or even think about air conditioning. Once we got settled in, the problems just kept popping up.
First off, the dishwasher had no silverware holder in it. Well, that should be an easy enough fix. I called the office twice and asked for them to bring me one and never did I get it. Also, my door and the door frame don't line up so once it got cooler outside all of the warm air was going outside. By the way, this apartment complex has the OLDEST electric heaters so your PG&E bill will be huge. My sister has a 3 story house in SF and her bill is the SAME as mine (mind you, i really try not to use the heaters because they are old and smell terrible).
Another thing that was quickly made apparent was the flood directly outside my front door anytime that it rains. I'd like to remind you that my door isn't properly lined up in the door frame, resulting in a wet floor by my front door.
My garbage disposal broke and the drain was completely clogged so I called the office to put in a work order. It took 4 days and 3 phone calls to finally get a maintenance worker here to fix it. I have 2 children and had a stinky kitchen filled with dishes that I couldn't wash because water wouldn't go down. That was awful. Also related to the kitchen, the shelves are made in such a way that they are only about 7 inches tall. If you have any big appliances they won't fit. Also stuff like oil, ketchup, syrup... all of these things are too tall for the cabinets.
By the way, the maintenance guys are great, it's just hard to get them here.
I tried to get direct TV when I first moved in. However, when the guy came out to do the installation I found out that my hedges were too high to get a good signal. I asked him to mount the satellite and he said that the office doesn't allow that (although I counted 6 people that had theirs mounted in my backyard area).
The parking is awful. People are oftentimes in your spot and even though there are signs all over threatening to tow vehicles that are in the resident parking, I've called security and found out that they never tow.
Last but not least... the lack of air conditioning. As I stated earlier, I have 2 kids... well one of them is only 3 months old and it was 95 degrees in San Bruno today. We had no A/C. There are no ceiling fans. And they are doing construction on the pool. It felt like a sweat shop in here and was completely miserable. That was the straw that broke the camels back and that's what lead me to write this review today. If the apartments aren't going to have A/C units, they should at least have ceiling fans.
I'm moving out of here in July and ending my lease early because I refuse to subject my children to a sweltering hot summer here. The rent is fair and the apartment is big (except the kitchen of course) but the good things about living here are WAY outmatched by the bad. I hope this was helpful.
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User Responses
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From:
Anonymous
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Date:
05/22/2008
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I should probably just write my own post since this is super long, but I'm agreeing with most of what you said so I'll just post this as a reply.
Agreed on the air conditioning especially. I get that the complex was built in like, 1970 and probably not a lot of people had a/c back then... but geez... install it!!! This isn't San Francisco. It feels like death inside the apartment during the summer. I moved here from way way out of town and I asked them what the summer temps were like, because I noticed they had no a/c. They told me it was generally cool. It's not. Last summer my apartment was about 100 degrees on an 85 degree day because I'm on the top floor.
Also, we can't really buy a portable a/c because the only "windows" we have are 2 giant sliding glass doors and 1 giant sliding glass window. How are we supposed to vent the a/c? It's just not possible. (what really pisses me off is that the office has a/c. So it's obviously hot enough to need it and possible to install? So you guys have no excuse.)
I also sympathize with you about direct TV. I had the same problem. They told me it wouldn't work because my balcony faced the wrong way... so I asked the office if I could put the dish on my front porch (which I share w/ my neighbor), or mount it outside the window. They said it wasn't allowed. Tell that to the AT LEAST 5 people I've seen w/ the dish on their shared front porch or mounted out their window. How the hell is that fair??? Why am I stuck w/ crappy San Bruno cable when other people get to have a DISH with twice as many options for less than I'm paying?
Again, I agree with you on parking. My spot is fine... it's guest parking that I have a huge issue with. I don't get why the hell they need to assign guests parking spots? Just give them a "Guest Pass" and let them park in any of the Guest spots!!!!
Another complaint I have... is they need to take a refresher course on tenant law. When we got a lease renewal on our door... it asked us to extend our least for 1 year and our rent would go up by $100 starting 30 days from the day they sent the letter. It said if we chose not to extend our least, our rent would go up by $200... also starting 30 days from the day they sent the letter. Now... without giving away what my rent is, I'll say $200 is more than 10%. Any time a landlord in CA wants to increase the rent by more than 10%, no matter what other options they are throwing at you, they HAVE TO give you 60 days notice. So not only did their little illegal slip up piss me off, but it lead them to lose a tenant. I was thinking about staying for about 3 months past my least while I saved up some money but I got out of there as fast as I could.
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From:
jsikorski
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Date:
06/02/2008
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I agree - it can get pretty bad at times during the summer. Here are a few tips for keeping cool(er):
- from the time the sun first comes up in the morning, make sure all of your blinds are *completely* closed, or at least the ones facing east (and then the ones facing west in the afternoon/evening). If you have the same blinds I do, you should be able to close them enough that you can barely see any light coming through the cracks where they overlap.
- make sure any non-essential electronics are turned off from about 10AM on. This includes TVs, PS3, Xbox 360s, computers, etc. Sometimes, that's not possible - just remember that each device is like a small heater.
- this is common sense, but if you want air from outside to come in, having two windows (or a window and a door) open will cause a nice breeze to come through. On the hottest days, you're better off leaving everything closed during the day, because the hot outside air just causes everything inside to heat up faster.
- sticking a cheap-o fan by the window or screen door will also help pull cool air in. Walgreens has quite a few to choose from.
Although I can sympathize with you (today was particularly bad), I pretty much knew what I was getting into when I signed the lease, so I can't really fault CST for the hot weather.
Have you thought about buying one of those "portable" air-conditioners from Lowes? They're not cheap, but they probably cost less than breaking your lease.
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EDIT 06/02 (since you can't post multiple replies): actually, most portable A/C units *can* vent through a sliding glass door. They come with a kit that has everything you need to set it up.
Not sure what to tell you about DirecTV because, again, that problem could have been avoided by bringing a compass and checking before you signed the lease.
I will say that San Bruno Cable might not be quite as good as DirecTV, but they're not horrible - they have almost 30 HD channels last time I checked, and they add new ones pretty regularly. Plus, they have the best Internet service I've ever used - aside from consistently getting over 1 MByte/s download speeds, they give you the option of purchasing a 1 Mbit/s upstream, which is unheard of for cable providers.
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